Please don't think that I am an expert on the subject of love, because I'm not. I
have done a great deal of thinking and meditating about it and I would like to share
with you some of my findings. 

Because there are so many different kinds of love, it can be a very misunderstood
word. Having spent some time working with understanding these different kinds of
love and what they mean, I realised I wanted to know more about agapé -
unconditional, divine love_and I started to invoke that sort of love into my life. I
prayed that I be able to learn to love everyone and stop picking and choosing whom
I would love and whom I would not love. I was very earnest about this. I knew that
when a very powerful energy is invoked you have to take the consequences no
matter what they are. I said I was willing to accept anything that came, as long as I
could love unconditionally. Yes, I said 'anything'. What happened to me was quite
devastating. Peter, my husband of 27 years, left me. When I queried this, what I
received from within was, 'You want to love unconditionally, don't you? This is a
wonderful opportunity to love unconditionally.' I gasped. I never thought it would
mean something like this. How could any good come out of it? 

One day I was sitting on a bus and I found I was having a dialogue with myself
about unconditional love. I decided to write it down. With a stub of a pencil and on
the back of an envelope, I found myself writing, 'Can I say to you, and you say to
me "I love you" without either of us feeling uncomfortable, threatened or that
something is expected of us? Can we love unconditionally without any expectations
or demands? I feel we can but it is not something to be talked about, it is something
to be lived and demonstrated.' There it was, the 'how' of loving unconditionally.
Now it was a question of putting it into practice. Pretty easy with one's own sex, but
how about the opposite sex? 

How could I work with this question of loving unconditionally in regard to my
husband? Holding Peter in mind, I sat down and asked myself a number of
questions. I knew that if I could answer those questions in the affirmative then I
would be loving unconditionally. These were the questions I asked myself: 


1.Can I be myself at all times and allow others to be themselves, without
  judging, criticising or condemning? 
2.Can I love and love and go on loving asking nothing in return? 
3.Can I love someone with the same depth and to the same degree whether we
  are together or apart? 
4.Can I still love someone when I do not approve of or like something they
  have said or done? 
5.Can I love someone so much that I am willing to let them go because by
  doing so they will grow and mature? 
6.Can I love someone enough to stop helping them because I know if I go on
  helping them it will hold up their growth and evolution? 
7.Can I love someone enough to see that person leave me for someone else
  and hold no bitterness, resentment or jealousy? 


It took me five and a half years before I could answer yes to those questions
without wobbling. Try them yourself and see how you get on. How easy it is to say
you love someone when they are hundreds or even thousands of miles away. What
happens when you come face to face with them? Do you find you can truly love
them, or do silly little irritations loom up in front of you? Perhaps you get angry at
having been treated in a particular way or perhaps you feel jealousy, wondering
what the other woman has that you do not have. It is amazing what crops up in your
mind. I know from personal experience that the unconditional love can fly right out
the window. 

What can anyone do about this situation? I found that all I could do when I fell flat
on my face, feeling like an absolute failure, was to pray about it, to ask for help. I
am a great believer in prayer, because I personally feel I am communing with my
Higher Self, the God within. I found that when I asked for help what came to me
was: 'Stop condemning yourself. Stop judging yourself. Forgive yourself and move
on. There is so much to be done.' I realised that if I allowed seU-pity to come in, I
would be no good to myself or anyone else. Self-pity is such a time and energy
waster. So it is good to watch out for it and do something about it. If there is a
lesson to be learned, learn it quickly and move on. 

I have found that one of the first things to do in learning to love unconditionally is
to learn to love yourself. For me this was very difficult because I had to unlearn so
much that I had been taught throughout my life. Many years ago someone said to
me, 'Eileen, I want you to say you love yourself.' I flatly refused; that was not part
of my upbringing. I thought it was ridiculous, as I was aware of all my faults and
failings. A short time after that experience I was sitting in front of my mirror doing
my hair and I found myself saying, 'You know, you are a very wonderful woman.'
For a few seconds I was shocked but I continued to look into my eyes and I
realised that the eyes are the windows of the soul and I was looking at the Divinity
within, which is very wonderful. That was when I started to learn to love all of
myself and realised I was loving the God within me. You will flnd that when you
begin to love the God within, you see the God within others too and so begin to love
unconditionally. 

That is the aim. You no longer pick and choose whom you are going to love and
whom you are not. You begin to see the best and highest within everyone and draw
it forth. 

It says in the Bible, 'Love God and love your neighbour as yourself'. Are you doing
that? And if not, why not?

Eileen Caddy